2
‘Get out of bed, Fletcher. This is the only time of year I actually need you up on time. I can’t mind the market stall and shoe the packhorses at the same time.’ Berdon’s ruddy face swam into view as Fletcher opened his eyes.
Fletcher groaned and pulled his furs over his head. It had been a long night. Jakov had made him wait outside for an hour before he let him in, on the condition that Fletcher bought him a drink next time they were in the tavern.
Before Fletcher had a chance to bed down, he had to gut and skin the elk, as well as trim the meat and hang it by the hearth to dry. He only allowed himself one juicy slice, half cooked on the fire before he lost patience and crammed it into his mouth. In the winter it was always best to preserve the meat for later; Fletcher didn’t know when his next meal was coming at the best of times.
‘Now, Fletcher! And clean yourself up. You stink like a pig. I don’t want you driving customers away. Nobody wants to buy from a vagrant.’ Berdon yanked his furs away and strode out of Fletcher’s tiny room at the back of his forge.
Fletcher winced at the loss of his covers and sat up. His room was warmer than he had expected. Berdon must have been at the hot forge all night, preparing for trading day. Fletcher had long ago learned to sleep through the clanging of metal, the roar of the bellows and the sizzle as the red-hot weapons were doused.
He trudged through the forge room to the small well outside, where Berdon drew his dousing water. He hauled up the bucket and, with only a moment’s hesitation, poured the freezing water over his head. His tunic and trousers were soaked as well, but since they were still covered in blood from the night before, it would probably do them some good. Several more bucketfuls and a brisk scrub with a pumice stone later, Fletcher was back in the forge room, shivering and clutching his arms to his chest.
‘Come on then. Let’s have a look at you.’ Berdon stood in the doorway to his own room, the light from the hearth illuminating his long red hair. He was by far the largest man in the village, long hours of beating metal in his forge giving him broad shoulders and a barrel-like chest. He dwarfed Fletcher, who was small and wiry for his age.
‘Just as I thought. You need a shave. My aunt Gerla had a thicker moustache than that. Get rid of that wispy fuzz until you can grow a real one, like mine.’ Berdon’s eyes twinkled as he twirled the red handlebar that bristled above his grizzled beard. Fletcher knew he was right. Today the traders were coming, and they would often bring their city-born daughters with their long pleated skirts and ringleted hair. Though he knew from bitter experience that they would turn their noses up at him, it wouldn’t hurt to be at least presentable today.
‘Off you go. I’ll lay out the clothes you’re going to wear whilst you shave. And no complaints! The more professional you look, the better our merchandise does.’
Fletcher trudged back outside into the freezing cold. The forge lay right by the village gates, with the wooden palisade edge just a few feet from the back wall of Fletcher’s room. A mirror and small washbasin lay discarded nearby. Fletcher removed his skinning knife and trimmed away the fledgling black whiskers, before scrutinising his face in the mirror.
He was pale, which was not surprising this far north in Hominum. The summers were short in Pelt, with a brief but happy few weeks spent with the other boys in the forest, tickling trout in the streams and roasting hazelnuts by the fire. It was the one time when Fletcher did not feel like an outsider.
His face was harsh, with sharp cheekbones and dark brown eyes that were slightly sunken. His hair was a thick, shaggy mess of black, which Berdon would literally shear when it got too wild. Fletcher knew he was not ugly, but nor was he handsome compared to the rich, well-fed boys with ruddy cheeks and blond hair who populated the village. Dark hair was unusual in the northern settlements, yet since he had been abandoned in front of the gates as a baby, Fletcher was not surprised he looked nothing like the others; just another thing to set him apart from the rest.
When he returned, Fletcher saw Berdon had laid out a pale blue tunic and bright green trousers on his bed. He blanched at the colours but swallowed his comments when he saw Berdon’s remonstrative stare. The clothes would not look unusual on trading day. Traders were well known for their flamboyant garb.
‘I’ll let you get dressed,’ said Berdon with a chuckle, ducking out of the room.
Fletcher knew that Berdon’s teasing was his way of being affectionate, so he didn’t let it get to him. He had never been the talkative type, preferring his own company and thoughts. Berdon had always been respectful of his privacy, ever since he had been first able to speak. It was a strange relationship, the gruff, good-natured bachelor and his introvert apprentice, yet they made it work somehow. Fletcher would always be grateful that Berdon took him in, when nobody else would.
He had been abandoned with nothing, not even a basket or swaddling. Just a naked baby in the snow, screaming at the top of its lungs outside the gates. The snobby rich folk wouldn’t take him in, nor could the poor afford to. It had been the hardest winter Pelt ever endured, and food was scarce. In the end, Berdon offered to keep him, since he had been the one who had found him in the first place. He was not wealthy, but he had no mouths to feed and he did not rely on the seasons to work, so in many ways he was ideal.
Fletcher harboured deep hatred for his mother, even if he had no idea who she was. What kind of person would leave her naked baby to die in the snow? He had always wondered if it had been a girl from Pelt itself, unable or unwilling to raise him. He would often look searchingly into the faces of the women around him, comparing their features to his own. He didn’t know why he bothered. None of them looked anything like him.
Fletcher’s stall, now laden with shining swords and daggers, was already set up by the main road that ran from the gate to the back of the town. His was not the only one. Along the way there were more stalls, heavy with meats and furs. Other wares were on display: furniture hewn from the tall pines that grew on Beartooth and silver-petalled mountain flowers in pots for the gardens of the rich city housewives.
Leather was another of Pelt’s famous wares, their jackets and jerkins prized above all others for their fine craftsmanship and stitching. Fletcher had his eye on one jacket in particular. He’d sold most of his furs throughout the year to other hunters, and had managed to save over three hundred shillings for this one purchase. He could see it hanging further down, although Janet – the trader who had spent several weeks making it – had told him he could only buy it for three hundred shillings, if nobody made a better offer by the end of the day.
The jacket was perfect. The inside was lined with downy mountain-hare fur, soft and grey with a peppering of hazel. The leather itself was a deep mahogany colour, hardy and unblemished. It was waterproof and would not easily stain, nor would it be torn as he chased his prey through the forest brambles. It was closed by simple wooden toggles and came with a deep peaked hood. Fletcher could already picture himself in it; crouched in the rain, warm and hidden with an arrow nocked to his bow.
Berdon was seated behind him outside the forge, beside an anvil and a pile of horseshoes. Although his weapons and armour were of high quality, he had found that there was plenty of money to be made in reshoeing the packhorses for the weary traders, whose long journey to the remote villages along Beartooth had only just begun.
The last year the traders had stopped by, Fletcher was kept busy the entire day, even sharpening their swords after the stall had been emptied. It had been a good year for selling weapons. The Hominum Empire had declared war on a new front on the northern side of the Beartooth Mountains. The elven clans had refused to pay their yearly tax, money that the Hominum Empire demanded in exchange for their protection from the orc tribes of the southern jungles, all the way on the other side of Hominum. The empire had declared war to extract their dues and the traders had feared elven raiding parties. In the end, it became a war of principle with a few skirmishes but nothing more, and ended in a gentlemen’s agreement not to escalate. There was one thing that both Hominum and the elven clans agreed on implicitly; the orcs were the true enemy.
‘Will I have time to look around this year?’ Fletcher asked.
‘I should think so. Not much call for new weaponry at the moment. Beartooth’s new military may be old men and cripples, but I think the traders believe the presence of troops will dissuade brigands from roaming around here and attacking their convoys. The worst part is, they’re probably right – can’t see them having to defend themselves much this year. We won’t get a lot of business from them. But at least we know there’s still demand for my services from the military, after your visit to the front line last month.’
Fletcher shuddered at the memory of his journey over the mountain to the nearest fort. The front line was a grim affair, full of dead-eyed men, waiting for release from their military contracts. The elven front was the dumping ground for the men the military didn’t want. The empty bellies who could no longer fight.
Chaffing. That was what the soldiers had called it. Some considered it a blessing, away from the horrors of the jungle trenches. Men died in their thousands on the orcish front, their heads taken as trophies and left on spikes at the jungle’s border. The orcs were a savage, mindless race, dark creatures with merciless and sadistic intent.
Yet it was a different kind of horror on the elven border. A steady degradation. A slow starvation from half-rations. Endless drills from tired sergeants who knew nothing else to do. Uninspired generals who would stay in their warm offices, whilst the men shivered in their cots.
The quartermaster had been reluctant to buy anything, but his quota needed to be filled and the supply lines over Beartooth had long been reduced to a trickle as the demand on the orc front increased. The bundle of swords Fletcher had been carrying on his back since that morning were sold for far more than they were worth, leaving him with a heavy, but considerably lighter load of a bag of silver shillings. If he had brought muskets he would have been paid in gold sovereigns. Berdon was hoping that the traders might trade firearms for swords. If that happened, he could upsell the muskets to the quartermaster next season.
As Fletcher lay in his borrowed bunk in the barracks that night, waiting for the morning so he could return to Pelt in the light of day, he resolved that should he ever join the military, he would never allow himself to end up in such a place.
‘You, boy. Move your stall back from the gates. You’ll block the way for the traders,’ an imperious voice snapped at him, breaking into his thoughts.
It was Didric’s father, Caspar; a tall, slim man dressed in fine velvet clothing, hand-stitched from purple cloth that had been delicately embroidered with gold. He glared at Fletcher as if his very existence offended him. Didric stood behind him with a grin on his face, his hair plastered with wax into a blond side parting. Fletcher looked at the next stall over, which was considerably closer to the road than his.
‘I won’t tell you again. Do it now, or I’ll call the guards,’ Caspar barked. Fletcher looked at Berdon, who shrugged his broad shoulders and gave him a nod. In the grand scheme of things, it would make no difference. If someone needed weapons, they would find them.
Didric winked and made a shooing motion with his hands. Fletcher reddened, but moved to do as Caspar asked. Didric’s time would come, but his father was an incredibly powerful man. He was a moneylender and had almost the entire village in his pocket. When a baby needed medicine from the city, Caspar was there. When the hunting season went poorly, Caspar was there. When a fire destroyed a home, Caspar was there. How could a villager who could barely sign his own name on the lengthy contract understand the concept of compound interest, or the complex numbers written above? In the end, they all found the price of their salvation came at a cost higher than they could afford. Fletcher hated that Caspar was revered by many in the village, despite being nothing more than a conman.
As Fletcher struggled to shift the stall backwards, dropping several carefully polished daggers in the dirt, the village bell began to toll. The traders had arrived!